When Is It Time To Throw In The Towel On Your Season?

In professional sports, when a team’s season is over — traditionally when they are mathematically eliminated from the postseason — it begins planning for the future. Sometimes that means sitting veteran players so rookies and less experienced members of the team get valuable playing time. Sometimes that means having a fire sale and trading off any player of value. Sometimes it means coming up with “phantom” injuries for star players.

The reason professional teams are able to throw in the towel on a lost season is that they have the ability to jockey for a better draft position and improve their team during the offseason. Coaches and general managers at the professional level are running a business, so they don’t have to worry about being “unfair” to their veterans; it’s more important to try to leverage a better future.

But you don’t run a professional team. You don’t have to worry about balancing a salary cap and draft positioning. You don’t have the luxury of spending millions of dollars to rebuild your team from scratch after the season. What you do have to worry about though is developing your players.

So, when is it okay for a team to give up on the current season to plan for the future?

Again, the traditional answer is when your team is mathematically eliminated from competing for a championship. However, depending on what sport you coach, that could mean a lot of different things. College football programs have such a slim margin of error that even three losses may mean no shot at a national championship. Basketball, hockey and lacrosse teams usually have longer seasons, but it doesn’t take months to figure out where your team is headed.

You may be two weeks into your season and realize your team is going nowhere — just ask Sixers and Knicks fans. What do you do? Do you owe it to your fans and players to play the season out, or is it more important to get a jumpstart on next year?

For professional teams, calling it quits on a season purely affects the fans. While the idea of receiving a higher draft pick and the (hopeful) franchise player that comes with it is nice, even intelligent fan bases feel slighted when their team gives up. Yes, everyone wants young players to get valuable reps and develop; but fans that are paying to attend games want to see their teams compete, not tank.

In the ranks of youth sports, high school athletics and on the collegiate level, the consequences are different, as giving up on a season has much more of an effect on the players — both good and bad.

Much like in the pros, you’re only throwing away the end of your season in the hopes to build for the future. This gives you the opportunity to give rookies and other raw players live game reps and real playing time to continue their development. You may even find a diamond in the rough that was stuck on the bench behind an entrenched starter. It also gives you the freedom to try new things and a chance to experiment with new ideas or styles on the field, court or ice.  

But while you don’t have to worry about angry fans, you do have to worry about scorned players. Is it fair to let your veteran players suffer a lost season after they dedicated so much time and effort into your program? Is it fair to send your seniors off by throwing away their last games — maybe the last of their entire athletic careers? Your athletes sacrifice so much of their time, effort and energy; asking them to more-or-less give up is something they likely don’t want to do.

And what message does that send to future players and recruits? How does packing in a season midway through affect your reputation as a coach? Why would players choose to play for a team that quits?

Whether you owe it to your fans or players to try and win as many games as possible, quitting is a slippery slope in the world of sports. Throwing away a few games may give you a jump on next year, but it goes against the meaning of sports and competition. And if players are fined and banned for shaving points, shouldn’t organizations be penalized for doing the same?

The Sixers and Knicks would prefer you didn’t answer that.

Whether you want better draft positioning or a closer look at your young players, is quitting on your season worth the consequences?

Author Bio

Bobbie Quinn, co-founder of Gladiator Custom Mouthguards, played both lacrosse and field hockey as a youth and went on to play Division 1 women’s lacrosse in college. Bobbie continues to play women’s league field hockey and enjoys watching her son play various sports.